Give him the ball Levesque has been clutch for Raiders

Wednesday

Feb 6, 2013 at 12:27 PM

By GEORGE AUSTIN

By GEORGE AUSTIN

Editor

Connor Levesque hit not one, but two big shots for the Somerset Berkley Regional High School boys' basketball team on Friday night against Coyle Cassidy. And the two three-pointers not only helped to win the game for the Blue Raiders, but also to get the team in the state tournament.

"He wants the ball all the time," SB coach Bob Slater said. "When it's a tough shot, he wants the ball. He wants to be the kid to hit the tough shot."

With Somerset Berkley trailing, 64-61, with five seconds left in the fourth quarter, Levesque drilled a trey to tie the game and send it into overtime.

In the overtime, forward Matt Lafferty gave the Blue Raiders a 66-64 lead with two free throws and then Coyle Cassidy scored the next two baskets to regain the lead at 68-66. But with 33 seconds left in the overtime, Levesque fired away from international waters again and the ball splashed through the net for a 69-68 lead that the team held until the buzzer.

On one of the three-point shots, the team ran a play and Levesque lined up the trey from the wing. On the other three-point shot, he was about five feet outside the arc.

Levesque, the team's starting shooting guard, had 18 points in the game to go along with six rebounds and two steals. He shot four for 11 from behind the three-point line.

"He played really well," Slater said.

With the win, the record of Somerset Berkley improved to 9-6 overall. Teams that have at least a .500 record qualify for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament at the end of the season. The Blue Raiders have 18 games on their schedule that count toward the qualifying requirements for the tournament, so their win over Coyle, an Eastern Athletic Conference opponent, put them in the postseason. The team's two games against Durfee don't count toward the tourney record.

"We're very happy that we're in the tournament," Slater said. "Now, we have to focus on building our seed. That's big if we can keep playing well and get some momentum going into the tournament and get a home game."

In the game against Coyle, forward Zachary Ferris also hit a huge three-point shot when the Blue Raiders were trailing, 61-53, with a minute and nine seconds left in regulation.

"That really got us to where we could strike and win the game," Slater said. "That was a really big shot."

Ferris had 11 points in the game. Lafferty had six points in the game, was four for four from the foul line and had five rebounds. Other scorers for the Blue Raiders included guards Vaughn Browner and Cam Christo with eight points each, guard Mike Garrant with six points, forwards Coty Root and Mike O'Brien with four points each and forward Tom Clark with two points. Center Ben Beaulieu had 10 rebounds in the game and Garrant had four steals.

Somerset Berkley had been trailing Coyle, 57-49, on Friday night, with just over two minutes left in regulation. Slater said the team was getting outplayed by Coyle to that point, but really turned it on in the end. The Blue Raiders have had several comeback efforts this season, some successful, some not.

"We're learning, hopefully, from our mistakes and getting better down the stretch," Slater said. "That will be big in the tournament."